186
Various scholars perceived the objective of the program differently and indicated this in their
writings. For example, Tiberondwa (1976, p. 4) wrote that the Rural Reconstruction Centers
were areas where school-leavers were taken and taught to participate in productive manual
work instead of being allowed to loiter in towns. Sakala (1975) indicated that the centers were
to serve as nuclei of agricultural and agroindustry development for the government. According
to Shepande (in Kalapula 1984), the primary aim and objective of the program was to
implement the party and the government policy of rural development.
The planned annual enrollment in the program was 42,000, and every district was to have five
centers, with an intake of 800 per center. As noted by the ILO/JASPA Mission (1975), 19 if
such a plan had been implemented, 250 centers would have been established in the country
as a whole, and this would have involved 216,000 farming families or 1,080,000 to 1,296,000
people, which was equal to one-third of the rural population of Zambia in 1974. The initial
estimated cost was K17.5 million a year (Sakala 1975). By 1987, 51 schemes had been
started, comprising a total land area of 49,170 hectares. Out of this, 8,208 hectares had been
cleared and 1,434 youths settled. Further details are presented in table 6.4 below.
The selection criteria were simple: one had only to be a Zambian youth who had dropped out
of school and was unemployed. There was no shortage of such people. In 1987, government
figures showed that there were an estimated 1,316,637 unemployed out of a total labor force
of 1,966,285. Zambia has a very young population, and the school dropout rate is high. The
would be settlers were required to join the Zambian National Service and to become members
of the individual center cooperative.
(b) State Farms. Eighteen farms, comprising a total demarcated land area of 380 thousand
hectares. By 1987, only three farms (Mswebe in Lusaka West and Mwembeshi and Mtirizi
in Petauke district) were in production. The other fifteen farms comprising 300,000 hectares
had by this date been identified as State Land to be subdivided and allocated as small holdings.
(c) Southern Province Land Commission Farms. These were smallholdings of varying sizes, that
covered an estimated 29,642 ha. By 1987, 25,562 hectares had been surveyed, and a decision
had been reached by the government to subdivide the area and allocate the farms to people
that wanted to settle. Table 6.5 below gives details on the locations, number of farms, and
size of each.
(d) Tazara Corridor projects. A program was started in 1986 to develop commercial farms in an
area of about 1.5 million hectares along or near the Tazara railway. Development of the
project was hampered by inadequate funding, and as a result, of the 649,000 hectares that had
been demarcated in four areas, only 40,000 hectares comprising 486 farms had been
developed by 1990. These farms were incorporated into the Land Resettlement Program.
Details of the project are presented in table 6.6 below.
19
Reported in Kalapula 1984. p. 112.